Freedom
by linaerys
Summary: Four years post-movie Elizabeth goes looking for Jack and finds more than she expects.


Title: "Freedom"  
Author: linaerys  
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean  
Characters: Jack Elizabeth  
Rating: R  
Summary: Four years post-movie Elizabeth goes looking for Jack and finds more than she expects.

**Freedom**

The backs of Elizabeth's hands were chapped from the sun and salt and the palms cracked, oozed, dried and cracked again from the rope passing between them, but none of these discomforts were enough to turn her from her path. The pleasure of waves beneath her and blue sky above her was more than enough to make up for it, more than enough to distract her. It almost worked to divert her from the scene she'd left behind. She shied away from that thought and made a minor adjustment to the jib to catch just a little more wind.

This boat was hardly more than a dinghy—it was, in fact, a ship's boat abstracted from _The Adjudicator_, the Navy's most recent emissary to Port Royal. Norrington still had a soft touch for her, even after all these years, even after his wife had given him two healthy sons, and he was accustomed to loaning her a boat for little adventures. Usually she sailed it a little way around the island and back. Will never liked her making these trips, but Norrington seemed to get a little thrill from helping her betray her husband, even in this small way.

Small no longer, though, she thought. Elizabeth could see no land around her, but she had plotted her course well, and could hear birds above her, as sure sign that she would see land soon.

Will would have found her note by now, and he wouldn't be too surprised. It had been building for a while—her restlessness, his impatience. She saw it in his hurt look when Elizabeth spent too long talking to Mrs. Norrington at a party. That woman's husband took her on his voyages and she had stories and adventures to tell, and looked upon the Commodore with such love . . . Elizabeth had thought she would find that with Will.

In four years her only adventure was a failed pregnancy, losing the baby only a few months after conception. No, it was better this way—he would find someone else to keep house, and fill their home with children.

She was lost in thought when her boat bumped into a barrel bobbing in the water. Soon she had to navigate the boat through a maze of detritus—Tortuga's welcome mat. A pall of dirty air clung to the city even on a sunny day such as this, and the smell of soured wine, burning seaweed and human waste clung to the surface of the ocean surrounding it. Elizabeth had never been here, but Will's stories told her enough. Jack loved this place, and he would return again.

Elizabeth took out her charts to reassure herself. Over the long four years of waiting with Will for her life to start, she followed news of the _Black Pearl_, clinging to it like a lifeline, and now it would serve her well. He had last been heard from on a remote outpost of the Caribbean, preying on Spanish ships who hoped to consolidate their hold there and take back what they thought the English had stolen from them. She knew he and his crew would come back to their favorite port again to spend that money.

She imagined their meeting again. He would know her—he had to—even with her hair cut short shoulder length and tied in a sailor's queue, even dressed as a boy, he had to. And if he didn't, she vowed with a jut of her chin, she would remind him. Her thoughts went back to her last dream of him: hard, sun-warmed boards under her back, the feel of his hair dragging across her neck. Those dreams had to mean something.

Elizabeth tied the boat up in a hidden shoal, too small for a craft of any size, and climbed overland to reach the stinking city. The island's rocks were hard and cut up her hands and the soles of her boots, but it felt like nothing now, she was coming home.

"Pretty boy," called out a woman on the street to her. "Pretty boy, come spend some pretty coin," she said again, and stretched out spidery fingers to Elizabeth's money pouch.

"I'm sure I can't afford you," said Elizabeth as graciously as she could manage. The woman gave her an odd look, then said, "Well love, if you're not buying, perhaps you be selling. A turn here on your back and I'm sure you could afford anything in this rotten city."

Elizabeth gave her a look of disgust and backed away, only to run up the porch of a tavern, and spill a man's rum. She apologized and started to back away when the man took a drunken punch at her.

"I'll buy you another drink, sir," she said as she ducked under his slow swing. He took a considering took at her.

"Allllright," he said after a long moment. "Come inside. Wot's your name?" Elizabeth hadn't thought about that, in all those long hours on the boat, but Will's name had served her in the past, and would again.

"Will Turner," she said.

"Not _the_ Will Turner," said the man. Elizabeth nodded, surprised. "I've 'eard so much about you. This is an honor. I didn't think it was really true. Let me see your hand." Elizabeth turned up her palms. They were caked with the grime of the ship and the worse filth of Tortuga. "There it is!" he said, "the scar from the cut that broke the curse. I thought Captain Jack must be lying, but here you are, large as life." Yes, there it was, the scar from where Barbossa had cut her hand. It had not healed cleanly and was visible through the dirt.

"I'm Pickens. You must have come to Tortuga looking for your father. And 'e's here, in this very tavern, come on." There was nothing for it, and Elizabeth followed the man inside. A brawl seemed to be in full swing, but her escort paid it no mind and guided Elizabeth around the perimeter. He threw a punch of his own in when things seemed to be getting too close, but otherwise they passed by without incident.

"Bootstrap! Bootstrap!" Pickens called out. "Look 'o I've found." Elizabeth looked to see a tall slim man turn toward them. He had a kind but tired face, and was lighter colored than Will with blue eyes and hair bleached whitish blond by the sun and thinning on top—Will's mother must have been darker. Mr. Turner, if such he was, stood there expectantly. "This is your son, Will Turner!" Elizabeth looked at the ground, unsure of what her next course should be.

"Are you indeed?" he said quietly. His speech had a slurring drawl in it that reminded her of Jack. "Come then," he said with a half-smile, and embraced her tightly. Elizabeth was grateful for her small breasts; they would not give her away.

"Jack," he called out next. Elizabeth's face grew hot and her fingers tingled. She thought she smelled his distinctive scent: leather and rum, smoke and sweat penetrating through the tavern's own odor. Yes, then it was his warmth she felt, although she could not turn, and felt herself rooted in place. "Jack, you know my son Will, better than I. He's come back to join us."

Jack embraced her from behind, and Elizabeth tried not to stiffen. Her charade would be over soon. She turned within the circle of his arms to face him. Elizabeth barely had time to look at him, see if four years had changed him, before he pulled her close.

"Will, is it?" he asked in her ear. "You've changed, Master Will." He pressed himself hard against her, so she could feel ever wiry inch of his body, then as he let her go, he brushed his hand against her crotch. "Nothing there. I always though you were a eunuch." Elizabeth didn't know whether to laugh or cry or be outraged, so she settled for silence.

"I'm afraid we must end this little masquerade here, Bill," said Jack. "This is not Will Turner, but rather his wife."

Bill raised his eyebrows slightly and raised his glass. "I'm sure there's a story in this," he said with that same half smile. He did not seem surprised. It was Will's smile, if Will's had ever held a measure of confidence. Will's was always weak, always begging for approval. Elizabeth smiled herself, then blushed and looked down. "Perhaps we could find some place quieter."

They went to a tavern whose clientele was more concerned with finding oblivion than entertaining their fellows, and found a private corner. Elizabeth drank her rum slowly, one gentle sip at a time, but she had learned over the years to hold her alcohol, and did not mind the languor it gave her body.

She told at least part of the truth. How she was barren, and ill suited to be a wife. She spoke quietly. "He wanted me gone, Mr. Turner. I know this," she said at the end. Bill Turner nodded to himself. "But why did you never seek him out?" Elizabeth asked. "I think he would be happy to know you're alive." Bill and Jack exchanged a look, and Jack stood up from the table.

"I must retire," he said with an exaggerated yawn. "But you two still have much to discuss." Elizabeth looked forlornly after him as he left, his drunken stride enticing and exasperating, then turned back to Bill.

"I did seek him out Miss Elizabeth." Elizabeth noted that he did not call her Mrs. Turner. "He did not wish to have a pirate for a father, so I left him be. Too late, he should have realized he had a pirate for a wife. But he loves you, or did when last I saw him, children or no." Elizabeth felt the exhaustion of days at sea catching up with her, and she shook her head to try to clear it.

"I won't call myself Will Turner any more; for that I apologize," she said when she stood up. She held her head up proudly, jutting her chin forward. "But I am not going back to Port Royal. I need my freedom, as do you."

She found Jack lingering outside the door. He swung out from the steps as she approached. "Where are you going now, lad?" he asked as he caught her arm. As ever, he came up too close, his breath warmed her face, and she felt the need to pull back from him. Then she rolled her eyes—this was part of his power, his ability to make people feel uncomfortable and confused, and she resolved not to let it work on her.

"I had thought to turn pirate," she said with a bitter laugh, "but it seems even lawlessness has its rules."

"Oh, Bootstrap won't be shipping you back to young Will, love, never fear." Jack slid quietly in the shadows to come behind her. "You make a charming boy," he said with a leer, "Even prettier than Will was." Elizabeth just looked at him, trying to show no reaction. Then Jack sighed.

"I've rooms up here. I'll offer you no insult. But stay so I won't be worrying over you," he said. Elizabeth followed him up. True to his word, they slept next to each other with few touches. She tried to sleep lightly, but it had been seven days since she had last been able to sleep without keeping one eye open for the weather, and her sleep was deep and dreamless.

She awoke when sun came streaming through the curtains. Jack was up on one elbow looking at her, and he smiled a quick little grin on seeing her eyes open. "You snore like the entire navy after payday. It's a wonder you left Will and not the other way 'round."

"Indeed?" said Elizabeth, putting as much disdain as she could into that one word, then grinned at him herself.

"You've grown up, love," said Jack. He put his hand forward and brushed a stray hair away from her face. "I think I like you better now."

I thought you said it never would have worked, Elizabeth wanted to say, but instead she licked her lips and looked down, away from his gaze that seemed suddenly too hot to meet. At the time she had given those words no heed, but as the months and years passed she dwelled on them more and more.

The sun coming through the windows warmed her skin deliciously, and although it was not the deck of a ship where she had dreamed them together, Elizabeth decided this would do.

"I've come all this way," she breathed, barely audible. She felt Jack's eyes on her, but kept hers downcast. Jack slept with his shirt off, and she could see the bullet scars on his shoulder, the tattoos, the deep ripping scars down his arm, and between the soft brown skin, made more beautiful by its wounds. She reached her hand out to trace the outline of one of the bullet marks, and Jack sighed and lay back over onto his back.

Elizabeth pulled back, uncertain for a moment, but Jack took her hand and brought it up to his lips. "Come a little further," he said. She took the invitation and climbed up on top of him. His hands went under her shirt and took it off over her head. Elizabeth bent down and kissed him deeply. She kissed down his neck and over to his ear and lingered there a moment.

"I won't be a wife again," she said.

"That's fair," he said with a gasp, as Elizabeth worked her way back down his neck and dragged what remained of her hair across his chest. "I won't be a husband."

Elizabeth untied the strings of his trouser and started to work them down over his hips. She felt wanton and wild here in the morning sunshine. "Will you be my captain?" she asked. "Until I have a ship of my own."

He pulled her up to him, and rolled her over onto her back, and helped her with her trousers. He spread her legs for her, and bent down to where they met. His beard trailed against her skin, tantalizing her. He made her come quickly with his mouth and hands, and it occurred to her to suggest that this kind of sex might be wrong and unwholesome, but she was so far from every day propriety that she kept silent, and soon did not wish to protest at all.

Elizabeth rolled him back onto his back, and sat astride him again. She guided him into her, and said, as their motions became more fevered, "You never answered me," with a gasp on the last word.

He put his hands on her hips to guide her motion and smiled in a way she'd never seen before, a wicked, sharp smile. Then he pulled her hips hard on him and clasped his hands around her back pulling her down to lie on top of him.

"I'll be your captain, and your ship," he said whispered in her ear. "I'll be your freedom."


End file.
